RELIGIOUS.                              603

wise dispensation of Providence. The man who is divinely called and walks
with God, has nothing to fear. God will always order his cause aright.
If this is not true, there is no meaning in our Master's words, "Lo, I am
with you alway." No class of men has more assurance of divine protection
and care than the gospel minister.
  (7) Paul was a great apostle.
  For in nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostle. 2 Cor. 11:5; 12:11.
This was no ungodly boast but a fact which his life and works verify.
  (8) Paul led the Christian Church from the confines of Judaism
into world-sympathies and world-relationships.
  Some one has truly said, "The struggle for Gentile freedom waged by Paul
is typical of the battle for freedom of conscience, for freedom of knowledge,
for human rights and of every other battle against tyranny and wrong
which the world has ever seen."
  (9) Paul was a great orator and philosopher.
  (10) He was the first great champion among the apostles for the
brotherhood of man.
  He taught that there was neither Jew nor Greek, bond or free, but all
were one in Christ Jesus. Of one blood God hath made all nations of men
to dwell on all the face of the earth. Truly God raised him up to be the
apostle to the Gentiles, which office he filled with much suffering. In
labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in deaths oft. Of the
Jews five times received forty stripes save one. Thrice beaten with rods,
once stoned, thrice suffered shipwreck a night and a day; in perils of water,
in perils of robbers, in perils by his own countrymen, in perils by heathens,
in perils in city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils
among false brethren, in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in
hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness. 2 Cor. 11:23-27.
  But when his work was finished, he could say I am ready to be offered up
and the time of my departure is at band. I have fought a good fight, I
have finished my course, I have kept the faith. 2 Tim. 4:6-7. A more
beautiful and influential dying testimony is not on record among God's
children, because none have suffered more and been more loyal to duty than
Paul.

                    THE WARFARE AGAINST SIN.

   It is commonly held, and there are innumerable illustrations which may
be adduced in support of the opinion, that the principal business of the
Church is to resist the devil and to fight sin. We have come, however, to a
time when we can see that the principal duty of the Church is not to oppose
sin, to attack sinners, or even to save men from sin and the consequences
of sin. This statement will excite immediate opposition, and we shall be
confronted by the authority of Jesus. We shall be told that what is called




			

OHS/National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center Serial Collection

African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Vol. 28, Num. 2

Volume:  28
Issue Number:  02
Date:  10/1911